Cool 'n Quiet revisited

A

Al Smith

I finally got Cool 'n Quiet working on my ASUS K8V-X with AMD
Athlon-64 3200+, and wanted to mention it, since I posted a while
ago that I'd tried it, and it didn't do anything. Well, it does
work -- partly. It drops the regular operating temperature of my
CPU way down. When I surf the Net or do other light tasks, I'm
only running 32 C now. That's a drop of around 18 C. It's actually
cooler than my motherboard. To my surprise, it even dropped the
maximum temperature down a few degrees. Before I activated Cool 'n
Quiet, I was running at 60 C playing games, and even going as high
as 62 C with some games. Afterward, my maximum temperature playing
games was 58 C.

What it doesn't do for me is change the speed of my fans. Neither
my case fan nor my CPU fan slows down at all. Power supply fan
doesn't show in any case and never did. All the temperature drop
comes from the voltage reduction in the CPU core. I think the
reason the CPU fan doesn't slow is because I put in a Thermaltake
aftermarket fan and it's speed is not regulated in the same way as
the stock fan. As for the case fan, maybe it's already running at
minimum, or maybe the motherboard temp is keeping its RPMs up.
Still, overall, Cool 'n Quiet was worth activating, so I take back
my negative comments.
 
J

John

Al Smith said:
I finally got Cool 'n Quiet working on my ASUS K8V-X with AMD Athlon-64
3200+, and wanted to mention it, since I posted a while ago that I'd tried
it, and it didn't do anything. Well, it does work -- partly. It drops the
regular operating temperature of my CPU way down. When I surf the Net or do
other light tasks, I'm only running 32 C now. That's a drop of around 18 C.
It's actually cooler than my motherboard. To my surprise, it even dropped
the maximum temperature down a few degrees. Before I activated Cool 'n
Quiet, I was running at 60 C playing games, and even going as high as 62 C
with some games. Afterward, my maximum temperature playing games was 58 C.

Don't you find that when you are running games or high CPU applications,
that the fan runs very fast and quite a LOT noisier? I have an Athlon64
3400+ with the AMD fan and heaksink that were supplied with it and find the
fan noise is much louder when the CPU is running at higher temperatures. I
also would like to ask you something if poss... I installed the Cool &
Quiet program that shows the current CPU Speed, but it always stays at
1000MHz and 1.0750volts for the CPU. I thought that the Cool & Quiet system
was supposed to speed up the CPU when it needed more power. I have tried
some very CPU intense programs, but up to now, I've never seen it go above
these speeds. If I disable Cool & Quiet then I get the full speed 2400MHz,
but never with it enabled. Have you ever seen the system speed up
automatically?

Its a nice idea, but up to now, I don't really see the advantage of Cool &
Quiet (unless I'm missing the point!).

My old system that I just upgraded from (Athlon 2400+) ran quite happily at
2.1GHz 24/7 with an average temperature of around 39C which was pretty
stable most of the time (except in the height of summer when 45C was nearer
the average). I'm a bit concerned at the big change in temperature when
making the system work harder using this new 'Athlon 64 3400+'

John
 
A

Al Smith

Don't you find that when you are running games or high CPU applications,
that the fan runs very fast and quite a LOT noisier? I have an Athlon64
3400+ with the AMD fan and heaksink that were supplied with it and find the
fan noise is much louder when the CPU is running at higher temperatures. I
also would like to ask you something if poss... I installed the Cool &
Quiet program that shows the current CPU Speed, but it always stays at
1000MHz and 1.0750volts for the CPU. I thought that the Cool & Quiet system
was supposed to speed up the CPU when it needed more power. I have tried
some very CPU intense programs, but up to now, I've never seen it go above
these speeds. If I disable Cool & Quiet then I get the full speed 2400MHz,
but never with it enabled. Have you ever seen the system speed up
automatically?

I had the stock AMD heatsink and fan on for a short while and
couldn't put up with it. Yes, when you play a game, the fan speeds
up to as much as 7000 RPM, and on my box it literally buzzed, and
made the sides of the case vibrate harmonically, creating a lot of
noise. I had to rest my toe against the side of the box to stop
the side from vibrating. The Cool 'n Quiet software won't do a
thing to stop this, because when you play a game, it demands CPU
cycles, and when the CPU gets hot, the fan has to speed up to keep
it cool. My solution was a cool and quiet fan from Thermaltake,
which has an upper limit on fan speed that is around 2700 RPM. At
this speed, the box doesn't buzz.

Are you sure your CPU voltage isn't jumping up when you run a
game? On my computer, the Cool 'n Quiet software always shows it
at just over 1 volt when I'm doing ordinary tasks, but when I play
a game it does indeed jump up to full voltage. It's hard to see,
since the game screen blocks out the Cool 'n Quiet box, but I can
see the change just for an instant before the screen gets blocked.
 
T

Trout

I had the stock AMD heatsink and fan on for a short while and
couldn't put up with it. Yes, when you play a game, the fan speeds
up to as much as 7000 RPM, and on my box it literally buzzed, and
made the sides of the case vibrate harmonically, creating a lot of
noise. I had to rest my toe against the side of the box to stop
the side from vibrating. The Cool 'n Quiet software won't do a
thing to stop this, because when you play a game, it demands CPU
cycles, and when the CPU gets hot, the fan has to speed up to keep
it cool. My solution was a cool and quiet fan from Thermaltake,
which has an upper limit on fan speed that is around 2700 RPM. At
this speed, the box doesn't buzz.

Are you sure your CPU voltage isn't jumping up when you run a
game? On my computer, the Cool 'n Quiet software always shows it
at just over 1 volt when I'm doing ordinary tasks, but when I play
a game it does indeed jump up to full voltage. It's hard to see,
since the game screen blocks out the Cool 'n Quiet box, but I can
see the change just for an instant before the screen gets blocked.

You guys just need to install a Fanbus then you control the fans rpm.
Turn that turbo 7000rpm fan into a quiet 2000rpm fan easily with a
fanbus.
 
A

Al Smith

You guys just need to install a Fanbus then you control the fans rpm.
Turn that turbo 7000rpm fan into a quiet 2000rpm fan easily with a
fanbus.

Trouble is, this wouldn't work with the stock Athlon-64 fan and
heatsink because the fan needs to run at 6000+ RPM to keep the CPU
cool, when playing a game.
 
T

Trout

Trouble is, this wouldn't work with the stock Athlon-64 fan and
heatsink because the fan needs to run at 6000+ RPM to keep the CPU
cool, when playing a game.

6000? That's nuts. I run my Intel stock cooler fan at 2200rpm, on a P4
3.0ghz.
 
A

Al Smith

Trouble is, this wouldn't work with the stock Athlon-64 fan and
6000? That's nuts. I run my Intel stock cooler fan at 2200rpm, on a P4
3.0ghz.

What can I say? You're cooler than I am. Do you play games? That's
the only thing that pushes my CPU temperatures through the roof.
 
B

Bass

What can I say? You're cooler than I am. Do you play games? That's
the only thing that pushes my CPU temperatures through the roof.

Yes, I play lots of games. My cpu is actually an OC P4 2.66ghz to
3.0ghz using stock intel HSF. No problems and it is fairly quiet too.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top